Half-Life Episode 2 (Contains spoilers!)

[dux]

I musta missed him being mentioned

[jaboo224]

did anyone think that portal was better than episode 2? I thought the whole apature science thing was like revisiting black mesa in a weird sort of way :} felt good to be in a lab setting.

[insta]

I thought Portal was great, absolutely loved the turrets. If someone could mod them into standard HL2 I'll play through the entire singleplayer campaign again ("I don't hate you.." aww, such a cute automated killing machine).

Ep2 was also good, although I've seen way too many previews/trailers for it so I recognized maybe 80% of the areas. Guess that's my own fault though.

Right after getting the car, exiting the tunnel and entering the forest-area, I got a real Redneck Rampage feeling, if anybody has played that game. Dunno if thats a good or bad thing.

Also, the car "oh christ its an ambush" section seemed really tacked on, like "we need 15 more minutes of gameplay here, you got two weeks". Textures and what seemed like buildings directly from DoD source, somewhat simplistic/unpolished graphics etc. The rest of the game was good though.

I'm still sort of split regarding the achievements. In one way its cool, since everybody likes to be "rewarded", in another way it sort of takes you out of the game since you stop and do stuff you normally wouldn't do (thinking especially of the "kill 300 larvas" challenge. I normally wouldnt have stopped to shoot every damn larva until I ran out of pistol ammo if I didn't know about that achievement.) Maybe they're better fitted to multiplayer, since I like them in TF2.

Overall I'm happy about the whole thing, I'll probably play through Ep2 again just to check out the dev commentaries, should be interesting.

[jaboo224]

So what do you think valve will do with portal? Make a portal 2 with the woman character? or give gordon the portal gun when he gets aboard the borealis (Which so happens to have apature science equipment). Its pretty evident that they are investigating this portal technology especially if you go into the developer commentary on portal. should be interesting...

Also did everyone love the strider level? i personally loved that part in episode 2. was the best part of the whole game. Finally a spot in hl2 that isnt linear!!!!

[Sentura]

i thought the ending was brutal, i literally sat there just thinking, "omg it's just not gonna do that, it's just NOT gonna do that *BAM* i cant believe it just did that."

i really think that there will be a sort of merging story with portal 2/ep3, i reckon both protagonists are gonna meet; maybe not directly, maybe just get a glimpse of each other (both standing in awe for a second, then realizing they're still competitors), but something along the lines of that.

*portal spoiler?*

i am curious of this new protagonist though, with the backstory and all. my current theory is something based on that she is/was a prisoner (orange suit) transferred/bought by aperture science for testing. as for aperture science itself, well, we get that story when completing it. guess black mesa wasn't the only one with accidents...

*/spoiler*

[e-freak]

On Portal: The SDK-Project guy had an idea noted down at his page I find quiet intresting:

"My first though was: “Uhmmm… Alyx’s mother?”."

[BaRRaKID]

In my opinion valve could pull a really interesting plot twist from now on. We already know that Gordon is going to rescue something from Aperture Science in EP3, well what if in Portal 2 (if they do make one) you also have to rescue that equipment in a race against Gordon? You could see Gordon, and fight him (gravity gun vs portal gun would be interesting), and you get two games with two different characters, which have both the same objective but work for different factions.

I hope they do something like this

[Sindwiller]

In my opinion valve could pull a really interesting plot twist from now on. We already know that Gordon is going to rescue something from Aperture Science in EP3, well what if in Portal 2 (if they do make one) you also have to rescue that equipment in a race against Gordon? You could see Gordon, and fight him (gravity gun vs portal gun would be interesting), and you get two games with two different characters, which have both the same objective but work for different factions.

I hope they do something like this

Watch for Valve! They'll steal your idea!

[D3ads]

Nice blood, HL2's like SOF now

[MrH2o]

Here's my 2 side of the coin!

I've never written anything bad about Valve and this isn't a exception. The story is good (sometimes I can't understand cause they use "hard" english words) the graphical updates are nice, The achivments are nice (but like the other dude said, can "ruin" the game play a little) Overall I'm really satisfied with EP2.

A little short maybe and I would like less underworld levels next time.

Portal was nice too, a little easier then I expected but I can see user made maps soon being downloadable.

I noticed that they included a lot more humor in this episode then in any HL game before. While I love humor and loved it in game I can have a hard time when its in "serious" games and movies (like Terminator 3).

Anyway Its a masterpiece like everything else that leaves Valve's office. I didn't understood if they attached the data Alyx have gathered on the Rocket tho. If not, why couldn't they launched it before Gordon and Alyx got there?

And did you guys saw the brain D0g threw out of the Strider? Coool

[Mazy]

I finished Portal yesterday, just came back from work where I finished Episode 2.

Portal is absolutely genius, obviously. By far the most exciting thing in the package. Nuff said. TF2, amazingly good fun too.

So Episode 2, from reading peoples comments then I'm sure most of you will disagree with me. Although I think its a really well made and paced experience then I simply couldn't shake off the feeling of there being a lack of something in it. I still have a hard time putting my finger on it, but I really don't feel that the HL2 setting is doing it for me anymore. I mean the forests areas are cool, it looks great and all, but all of this felt like something you had done before....a lot. Apart from the Strider battle (which I started out thinking was a dumb quicksave nightmare but ended up really liking when the shit completely hit the fan, awesome), then it felt more like a series of spectacular ingame sequences with some, at times, very generic bread and butter gameplay in between.

Maybe its just me who's too much in the mood for some amazingly solid AI teamwork after playing Halo 3 (and fuck off with your hate until you've played it on Heroic or Legendary), rather than some really well presented but in the end veeery similar fights to the other HL2's. There's obviously exceptions, such as the ant lion defense bit and the fight after seeing the advisor in the barn.

Anyway, its not bad, and I can see how Valve has tried to spice up the game while staying true to the original formula, which is obviously what people want. There's just a part of me who wishes we could get off this episodic trilogy and onto a new location and set of ideas. Valve have proven themselves of being absolutely brilliant at creating this kinda stuff, and I'd love to see a completely different environment from them.

Oh and the story stuff (and I know I'm sounding really angry here, but I'm just being honest about this ). I donno if its just me, but in HL2 and Episode 1 it felt like Alyx's timing and dialogue felt a lot more smooth than in E2. Here I found too many awkward pauses, and I really never felt that was a problem before. Also the entire lead up to Eli's death could only have gotten more obvious if they'd tattooed a bullseye on his head

Oh yeah, the music was brilliant, kicks in at the exact right times, awesome.

But in the end, Episode 2 was good fun, I definitely had a good time playing it overall, even with a slight sense of deja vu. Probably a nice 8/10 from me . Gonna be exciting if they're gonna do what they kinda hinted at with the Portal/HL2 crossover. Might be a nice end for HL2 with Gordon accidentally locking himself inside a parallel universe

[Campaignjunkie]

After finishing Ep2, I can't wait for the SDK. My mind is buzzing with possibilities. Plus, Portal maps will be a nice change of pace from the back-breaking epic map releases most people are attempting.

I kind of agree with Mazy about Alyx's dialog. A little too much positive gratitude now, especially after some fairly trivial puzzles - for example, when you break the wood planks to send the mine cart down the slope and break through the wood barricade to get to the first transmission station, Alyx says something like "Great job Gordon, I can really count on you, you can always find a way through!" and I'm thinking "Wow, it just took me a few seconds and 2 mouse clicks..." Overreact much?

I liked everything else though. Vortigaunt wearing a labcoat = awesome. Magnusson and his nearly complete indifference to your fame = awesome. Fighting hunters (which are really cute, by the way) = awesome.

[Warby]

-too much underground "horror movie" stuff

-overacting from every npc involved.

-too much of the "COOL" stuff is completely scripted/animated/prebaked and not emergent

-uninspired techno music

-acid spitting antlions looked and played wrong somehow

+ new blood splatter effect boosts fragging enjoyment

+ many physgun/saw blade combos possible

+ hunter enemies were cool and actually fearsome.

+ more power cable puzzles than before ( i like those )

+ citadel background looks great

+ big strider fight was awsome

all in all 7/10 pales in comparison to tf2 = 9/10 and portal 10/10

[^Slick]

Did anybody else feel it was rushed in places?

I'd still give it a 10/10 though, some bits were odd but I'm just too much of a fanboy.

[Taylor]

I absolutely loved this and Portal so I don’t want this to sound overly negative. I'll give it 10/10, but then again there's sixteen 100% reviews of Halo 3 so I might have to bump that to 12/10.

A lot of the content is the same: Valve do things by the numbers (I’d be more surprised if I found a lift and it actually worked!), there are no new weapons and only two subtancial additions to the enemy roster. The new set-pieces were absolutely brilliant and had me grinning like a fool at my monitor… But between them both there’s about 8 hours of gameplay.

I know what you’re going to say: “Taylor, you dolt, it’s not a new game,” and that’s fair enough - but it feels like I’ve been waiting an awful long time. Yeah, this is another in-hindsight rant about episodic content. I’ll stop myself.

In my opinion valve could pull a really interesting plot twist from now on. We already know that Gordon is going to rescue something from Aperture Science in EP3, well what if in Portal 2 (if they do make one) you also have to rescue that equipment in a race against Gordon? You could see Gordon, and fight him (gravity gun vs portal gun would be interesting), and you get two games with two different characters, which have both the same objective but work for different factions.

I hope they do something like this

I think what Half-Life 2 needs now is Science and Industry!